Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Print Services Market to Cross US$6 Billion Barrier by 2017, According to IDC

Revenues in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) print services market, which includes Managed Print Services (MPS) and Basic Print Services (BPS), will cross the US$6 billion barrier by 2017. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), 2014 will be a pivotal year for market expansion into broader customer segments as well as further market growth.

The move away from hardware toward managed print services proves how vendors have taken advantage of the opportunity by offering multiyear business and customer cost savings and by strengthening the agility of the workspace with modernized technology.

"IDC sees fundamental transformation taking place in both vendor offerings and customer expectations in the MPS market," said Jessie Lee, Research Manager, Imaging, Printing, and Document Solutions. "Future success in the MPS market will come as a result of tapping into new opportunities by providing 'best-in-class' services and expanding into 'sweet-spots' across the Enterprise to Midmarket segment. In 2014, both quality (securing renewal and developing best practices) and penetration (channel program and developing new logos) will have significant impact on the MPS market, based on the maturity of vendors and the country."

Best-in-class experience

This strategy will be critical for vendors to sustain customer value, provide differentiation, secure renewals, and generate best practices that will be symbolic references in similar customer clusters or vertical markets.

Vendors will use MPS to drive more transformative opportunities revolving around digital capture, workflows, cloud integration, and mobile printing enablement. IDC expects greater integration with IT services and business process outsourcing engagements and a growing focus on vertical and line-of-business solutions.

Customers (large enterprises in maturing economies, in particular) are taking a holistic approach that factors MPS into the workspace strategy and ensures this is tied to the mobility, cloud, social business, and big data analytics agenda. This expectation will become more prevalent as enterprises plan productive and innovative workspaces for their employees.

The demands of the future work environment are determined by the maturity of the country and its vertical industries. IDC finds Australia to be the most mature market (over 30% market share in APeJ). Financial Services and Manufacturing are the leading vertical markets (up to 47% in APeJ) while Education is gaining momentum.

IDC believes vendors must promote their capabilities and continue to develop software/solution offerings with high service levels.

Expansion into "Sweet Spots"

IDC believes that Enterprise (Very Large Businesses with more than 1000 employees, and Large Businesses with 500-999 employees) will be the initial segment to drive MPS adoption. The Midmarket (Medium Businesses with 100-499 employees) is another important segment as the decision-making process is quicker and there are fewer objections to outsourcing services by multi-tasking IT departments.

In 2014, IDC expects businesses to further fine tune their customer-targeting strategies in accordance with specific customer requirements.

Large companies require "best-in-class" experience with customization and seem to be more accepting of the transition to solutions leveraging IT trends such as cloud, mobility, social business, and big data. Vendors will need to analyze target customers and invest direct sales and service resources to drive revenue mainstream.

Although the Midmarket has the potential to grow, extensive customer coverage and low ROI on direct resource investments is a pain point for vendors. In view of the business momentum in the indirect channel segment, IDC expects channel partners, including resellers, system integrators, and vertical influencers, to be a crucial part of the ecosystem to reach into Midmarket organizations to gain access to more lucrative MPS/BPS business.

Determining the success of channel MPS/BPS will heavily depend on sophisticated program design (margin analysis, resource readiness, target horizontal/vertical segmentation, split of R&R, training, and lead generation by co-marketing) to avoid channel conflict scenarios and generate more partners in the MPS/BPS ecosystem.

To illustrate these market opportunities, two interactive graphics showing APeJ managed print services market share by vertical industry and by company size are available here. The charts are intended for public use in online news articles and social media. Instructions on how to embed the graphics can be found by clicking the Share link at the top of each graphic.

For more information about the research or to purchase this data, please contact Sheryl Fuertez at [phone] or [e-mail].

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For the past 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and Events Company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

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